Ride Earth

I’m in Tbilisi and hopefully this blog will fill in what has been happening with me. As you may know I arrived in Yerevan for the first time, by bicycle, on the 24th January. I met up with Tom in the city after we had cycled alone from near the Georgian border. Fanny came out to visit me in Yerevan and we stayed with friends, Max and Irene. We had wonderful times which passed too quickly. Whilst bargaining for sweet and spicy paprika at the market, Fanny and I met a very interesting American Armenian called Manoog.

It turned out he is a very interesting person who is very active in the community in Yerevan. We met and exchanged stories and he took us to see some excellent jazz music in the ‘Stop Club’. He helped organise an event at a local NGO, where Tom and I made a presentation and showed our film footage from Turkey, Georgia and Armenia.

We were still waiting for our sleeping bags to be released from customs so I decided to hitch-hike back to Tbilisi. This was partly an exercise in hitch-hiking and partly to spend more time with friends in charming Tbilisi.

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The driver’s wearing a leather jacket, thick material. I think “that’s too hot inside this cramped vehicle - it must be for the look”. The driver looks like a gangster out of a Guy Ritchie film. Somehow I convinced myself to put my trust in this gold-teeth-laden man with gold ring and bracelet to match. He’s wearing his savings.

Across his weathered typically Armenian face adorn a pair of dirty gold tinted sunglasses so I can’t quite see the colour of his eyes in the rear view mirror. I’m sitting in the centre of a wide seat behind the driver. My legs are squashed against the faux-leather covering of the Ford Transit seating. I’m really trying not to think about how perfect my tradjectory would be through the windscreen if we crashed.

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Believe it or not, I finally left Yerevan on my bicycle on Sunday 2nd March 2008. I pedalled south for 70km, through the Ararat region, and camped in a field after dark opposite the factory of a company called ‘Abit Ltd’, which amused me slightly. At 7am the following morning I was on the road again. I began to climb East, away from the Ararat plateau and up into the mountains. (more…)